


Usual Suspect

by Nope



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-21
Updated: 2003-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: A series of pranks has an obvious cause





	Usual Suspect

(Ksplush!)  
  
Harry frowned at his goblet which was insistently more gerbil-coloured than he intended. McGonagall tutted as she stalked past, sweeping a critical eye along the rows of desk. He rolled his eyes at her back and undid his Transfiguration assignment.  
  
(Ksplush!)  
  
There were not, Harry thought, a great many plausible situations in which he would have a dire need of goblets and a surplus of gerbils, but who was he to question a learned Professor? Unless, you know, it was Snape. Or Lockhart. Or Umbridge. Or Dumbledore. McGonagall swooped past again, eying his rodent with significance. Harry sighed, raised his wand and--  
  
(Ksplush!)  
  
"What IS that bloody noise?" snapped McGonagall.  
  
There was a shocked silence. McGonagall pursed her lips. No one moved. McGonagall glared at the usual suspects. They looked back, blank. Nothing.  
  
Silence  
  
And then, just as she had just taken breath to speak, it happened again; a loud mess of a noise, half-way between a heavy thud and a thick splash.  
  
KSPLUSH!  
  
"I think it's coming from outside, Professor," offered Hermione.  
  
"Well!" McGonagall strode across the classroom and flung the windows wide. "We'll soon get to the bottom of this--"  
  
Something round sped through the gap and exploded against her face. She staggered back, drenched in a wash of colour. Clearing her eyes, she shook rainbow droplets of her hand and gave a wordless, angry shriek as the colours not only remained on her skin but began spreading all over her clothes in bright rushing shimmers.  
  
Survival instincts kicking in, Harry bit his tongue and quickly clapped a hand over Seamus's mouth. Beside them, Ron was shaking, turning an interesting shade of red. Hermione ducked, coughing, under the desk.  
  
Taking a breath so deep it raised her up to her toes, her face turning red, green, and blue, McGonagall let out a bellow that shook students off their seats and rattled the windows in their frames.  
  
"PEEVES!"  
  
#  
  
"If yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer," said Hagrid, waving the Hufflepuffs closer to the pen. "The thing about Snarks is, they're more 'fraid of yeh as yeh 'r of them."  
  
"Are they bollocks," muttered Ernie. "I wouldn't be afraid of me if I had teeth that big."  
  
A snort came from somewhere under the thick purple fur.  
  
"Are they supposed to be staring like that?" asked Justin. "With the pacing and the drooling?"  
  
"Breeding monsters is still illegal," added Susan.  
  
"Don' know wot yeh talkin' about," said Hagrid, carefully not meeting anyone's eyes.  
  
"What if they get out?" asked Hannah in between worrying at her pigtails with her teeth.  
  
"That one's looking at me funny," muttered Ernie.  
  
"Don' worry," said Hagrid. "They won' go fer yeh, long as yeh don' do anything ter upset 'em, mind. Now, who wants ter give 'em some o' me fresh steak?"  
  
The Hufflepuffs took a collective step back.  
  
"Aww, come on," said Hagrid, holding up a thick slab of raw, dripping meat. "They're perfectly harmless as long as yeh don' startle--"  
  
KSPLUSH! KSPLUSH! KSPLUSH!  
  
As one, the Snarks reared up through the sudden clouds of tiny, sticky, gold and silver stars, gave blood curdling moos, wind-milled their front legs and then smashed their way out through the fence, yodelling to accompaniment of screaming Hufflepuffs. Pulled along by the stampeding sticker-clad purple crush, Hagrid managed a single yelled curse before he was lost to view.  
  
"PEEVES!"  
  
#  
  
"Of course," lectured Flitwick, multi-coloured chalks squeaking all over the blackboards, "in situations such as these, a good foundation in basic pre-emptive banishing rituals is a basic necessity; especially when over-reaching one's self can have dangerous, even fatal consequences."  
  
"Huh?" said Goyle.  
  
"Don't pick it up if you can't put it down," said Blaise.  
  
"Exactly!" Flitwick clapped. "Well put, that, uh, young--"  
  
"Blaise," sighed Blaise, eyes rolling.  
  
"Yes. Right." Flitwick waved a hand at the board. "Now, as you can see here--"  
  
KSPLUSH!  
  
"Ifrit's really like glitter?"  
  
"Yes, Ifrit's--" Flitwick stared at the mess of chalk and glitter. "Wait, that isn't right." He waggled a finger at the class, glaring affectionately. "Up to your old tricks again, I see!"  
  
"Professor," drawled Malfoy, "that wasn't us."  
  
"A likely story, my lad!"  
  
"No, really," said Pansy. "It wasn't."  
  
"Yeah," said Crabbe, "we was gonna float your desk up-- Owww!"  
  
Millicent glared at him.  
  
"Well, easily fixed," said Flitwick. He raised his wand towards the board just as something small shot in through the top window and  
  
" _Protego_!"  
  
smashed against nothing, leaving a shimmering slick sliding down thin air.  
  
Flitwick danced a little jig on his pile of books. "You'll have to be faster than that to catch out ol' Filius Flitwi--"  
  
A balloon through the bottom window knocked him clean off his feet.  
  
"Niiice shot!" cheered Malfoy.  
  
There was a spluttering noise from beneath the desk and then Flitwick climbed back into view, coughing up glitter. When he shook his head, little shining sparks puffed up around him. There was silence until Pansy caught Malfoy's eyes and they both cracked up; within seconds the rest of the Slytherins were pounding their desks and rolling in the aisles.  
  
Cutting through the laughter with a noise not wholly unlike a boiling kettle, Flitwick squeaked a promise of a fearsome vengeance to come.  
  
"PEEVES!"  
  
#  
  
Spiralling over the Quidditch pitch, Hooch blew a sharp retort on her whistle and then raised her hands to form a makeshift bullhorn through which she yelled "Put your backs into it!" at the people trying out for Ravenclaw Beater.  
  
Fawcett made a game swing, missed completely and ended up spinning away on her broom until Corner managed to steady her. Seconds later both had to dive as all five people trying out for chaser chose the same moment to swoop for the Quaffle, resulting in a series of spectacular near misses and a rather surprised Orla Quirke being left holding the ball despite trying out for Seeker.  
  
The problem with Ravenclaws, mused Hooch, was that for all their intelligence, they didn't have a lick of common-sense between them. But Davies had insisted all the tryouts take place at once to see how well the players coped with other people being in the air, so there they were, and there she had to be.  
  
Catching a glimpse of something moving -- was that the snitch? -- out of the corner of her eye, Hooch glanced towards the lake; she had barely turned her head when machine gun fast splashes echoed out over the pitch and she suddenly found herself swooping through clouds of brightly coloured and faintly perfumed smoke.  
  
She steered towards the screeching from the Owlery and broke out into clear air in time to see Cornfoot topple backwards off his broom, wrapped in thick green smog. A quick count of the clouds rising from the pitch told the full story: every single flyer had been hit except--  
  
KSPLUSH!  
  
"PEEVES!"  
  
#  
  
They clustered in the Headmaster's office, a parade of angry faces, a cacophony of angry jabbering. Dumbledore sipped his tea, serene and nodding in appropriate places.  
  
"We have to--" "--gold stars and--" "--really, headmaster--" "--washing the halls for hours--" "--has gone too far--" "--hoof prints all through my greenhouse--" "--blasted ghost has--" "--Norris was pink and--" "--owls squeaking like mice and--" "--giant fish--" "--entire team of--" "--what are we--" "--string him up--" "--tie him down--" "--exorcism, banishment, something--" "--RID OF PEEVES!"  
  
At that last there was a chorus of agreement. When Flitwick nodded, clouds of glitter rose up and settled on a currently salmon coloured McGonagall and in Snape's new beard which was still growing, pooling in multi-hued strands around his feet.  
  
"Really, ladies, gentlemen," said Dumbledore. "I'll admit Peeves can be a little mischievous on occasion, but I hardly think he can be in a dozen places at once. I'm sure there's some other perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. A bit of healthy student hijinx, perhaps. Nothing to worry about."  
  
Every other person in the room glared at him.  
  
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled brightly and he smiled and pushed a paper bag across the desk. "Sherbet Lemon, anyone?"  
  
#  
  
The mood of the staff as they made their way out of Hogwarts main entrance could best be described as half-way between mutinous and murderous. Their angry conversations contained repeated uses of words like "curse" and "hex" and the mood was not helped by the sudden appearance of the wide-mouthed, sharp-eyed, floating figure of their wrath.  
  
"You!" spat Snape, throwing his beard over his shoulder so he could stalk towards the ghost. "You--!"  
  
"Me! Me!" laughed Peeves, seeming unconcerned by all the wands pointing at him.  
  
"When we get through with you," said Snape, "you'll wish you never died."  
  
"Wish I'd never died!" Peeves spun head over heels laughing. "Oh, that's a good one, Snivellus!"  
  
Snape's grip tightened till his knuckles were white and the wand threatened to snap in his grasp. "PEEVES! Prepare to--"  
  
 **KSPLUSH!**  
  
"--squawk?!"  
  
Peeves grinned down at what seconds before had been most of the Hogwarts staff and which were now a small group of small winged creatures.  
  
"I don't know about you lot," he laughed, "but I for one suspect fowl play!"  
  
A greasy-feathered cockerel glared balefully, flapping his wings and pecking pointlessly at the poltergeist.  
  
Peeves cackled in glee, doffing his belled cap and making a grand, sweeping bow to the lake where a large box with the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes logo was vanishing below the surface.  
  
"That's my girl!"  
  
Flushing pink, the Giant Squid returned the bow with a pleased little shiver of tentacles.


End file.
